Description
Book SynopsisIn a makeshift hospital in a refugee camp on the outskirts of Beirut, Yunis, an aging Palestinian freedom fighter, lies in a coma. His spiritual son Dr Khaleel - who has no real medical qualifications - nurses the older man, refusing to admit that his hero may never regain consciousness.
In an attempt to revive his patient, Khaleel, begins telling Yunis the stories of their people''s exile in Lebanon. He evokes deserted peasant villages, the suffering caused by the Lebanese civil war and the refugees'' hopes to return home with a subtle mixture of anger and compassion. Khaleel also narrates Yunis'' own extraordinary life.
Interweaving many true-life tales collected throughout Lebanon and its refugee camps over the course of seven years, Elias Khoury has created a monumental and spellbinding saga.
Trade ReviewBrilliant ... Elias Khoury, along with Mahmoud Darwish, is an artist giving voice to rooted exiles and trapped refugees, to dissolving boundaries and changing identities, to radical demands and new languages -- Edward Said
He creates his very own, and very believable, newly coined mythologies...[the] result is a work of remarkable suspense... poetic and mysterious -- Nicholas Blincoe * Daily Telegraph *
Gate of the Sun is an imposingly rich and realistic novel, a genuine masterwork * New York Times Book Review *
The word 'brilliant' is etched across Khoury's new novel... It's a novel that will outlive us * Independent *
In
Gate of the Sun, a character dreams of writing a 'book without a beginning or end... an epic of the Palestinian people'... Khoury's monumental novel is in a sense that groundbreaking book * Guardian *
